This week marked the beginning of the summer holidays and meant we said hello to some old and new friends. However, the weather has been less than summery with Wednesday seeing us making good use of our waterproofs. The children had great fun jumping and splashing in the huge puddles that formed during a heavy downpour. Some children also liked to observe the water that built up on the tarpaulin, while others used buckets and cups to catch the rain.
The children have been bug-crazy this week, with many different bugs and insects being found hiding away in our forest. Of particular interest has been the number of ladybirds we have found. This led to a popular creative activity in which the children got to make and decorate their very own ladybird wings. This also gave educators the opportunity to encourage lots of counting and mathematical language. Later in the week our Little Forest Folk-ers built a ladybird sanctuary using a plastic bottle and corrugated which will come in handy in winter when our fellow forest-dwellers will begin hibernating!
Lots of fun has been had using our puppet show set. Some children used cuddly animals to entertain their friends, while others designed their own using cardboard, sticks and our resources found in the forest. Two of the most popular characters were chief engineer transformer (who had a lot of trouble bumping his head on the stage) and an unusual figure in the name of Mr Carrot. They took turns to be ‘actors’ and ‘audience’ and one child reminded his friends of the requirement to bow towards the audience at the end of the show. I’m sure they’ll be many more performances to come!
This week we have re-discovered our singing voices and together we have sung some of our old favourites. The most popular of these has been the ‘hairy scary castle’. I’m sure the children would enjoy teaching their mums and dads the lyrics to this one and scaring them with very loud ‘BOOS.’ Feel free to share your favourite family favourites and any suggestions for new songs. Queen’s ‘we will rock you’ is still regularly heard ringing out from the forest!
As always, we have been promoting healthy food choices and encouraging children to eat their different fruit and vegetables. To make this fun they got to crush apples to produce their very own fresh apple juice. They also got to select which fruit they wanted to use to make ‘fruit skewers’, sliding different pieces of fruit onto sticks. After producing such colourful and tasty-looking snacks, the children got to do the best part, the tasting!
Our eco council has been busy patrolling the forest on the lookout for litter. They have been on a mission to ‘keep Twickenham tidy’ and ensure that our forest environment is looking its best. The children loved taking turns with the litter picker and did a great job finding rubbish. Great work Forest Folkers!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham